8. March 9th. Pyrenean Journal. Oaks.

I'm off to plant a red oak, whatever the weather, before I crumble into an elderly bigot.

The wind howls, the sleet streaks and drives and hail tinkers with a tin roof. The broad beans are just miserably proud of this thin blanket of snow. Garlic, too; erect points of bright green hope. No optimistic blackbird pipes up this time. But I am out; winding up the wind, slurping over the field, to dig a hole for the oak. Emile has told me not to plant it too near the fruit trees, as its root system will eventually be unsympathetic to them. That is, the fruit trees will not prosper. Now that is interesting because I also know that oaks planted near other oaks ARE mutually conducive. They can, in a way, share each others' root systems, and, so to speak, download nutrients to others in their group that are perhaps struggling to survive. Ah trees, what magic is working there!